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The Citadel of Chaos (book)
The Citadel of Chaos is a single-player roleplaying gamebook written by Steve Jackson, illustrated by Russ Nicholson and originally published in 1983 by Puffin Books. It was later republished by Wizard Books in 2002. It forms part of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone's Fighting Fantasy series. It is the second in the series in both the Puffin (ISBN 0-14-031603-5) and Wizard (ISBN 1-84046-389-9) series. Creation Background Blurb The book is, like its predecessor ''The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, set in the fictional world of Titan in the Allansia region. The player must negotiate deep into the Black Tower to defeat of the warlord Balthus Dire, who plans to conquer the Vale of Willow. Rules The book in general follows the original rules set down in The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. (see Game System) Unique Rules In addition to the standard rules, The Citadel of Chaos makes use of a new attribute: magic. This was a simple 2d6 roll with the addition of 6 to the number rolled which determined the "number" of spells the reader begins with. The spells were chosen from a pool of twelve spells, which were: Creature Copy, E.S.P., Fire, Fool's Gold, Illusion, Levitation, Luck, Shielding, Skill, Stamina, Strength, and Weakness. Due to the ability to use spells to restore the values of the three standard attributes, the player does not begin this adventure with either Provisions or Potions. Cover and Illustrations The book had two different cover illustrations when it was originally published by Puffin, the earlier one being more simplistic. #Price of 10th Impression #Price of 16th Impression #Price of 26th Impression Intertextual References The main villain of the book, Balthus Dire, also appeared in the novel The Trolltooth Wars by Steve Jackson and the character is a contemporary of Zagor (from The Warlock of Firetop Mountain) and Zharradan Marr (from Creature of Havoc). Other Media Videogame versions of the book were released in 1984 for the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64. Further Notes *19 instant failures, 1 victory, plus failure by inadequate inventory, insufficient spells or loss of stamina points. *This gamebook has been deemed by many fans to be one of the few Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, if not the only one, that offers a fair chance of completing the book with the weakest possible character (skill 7, stamina 14, luck 7, magic 8). This fits well with Steve Jackson's statement in the rules that no matter how weak a player's initial dice rolls are, so long as he or she made the right choices, should be able to made it through the game with a bit of luck. *In many ways The Citadel of Chaos was similar to the original Fighting Fantasy gamebook, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain with a similar goal and setting. However The Citadel of Chaos removed the key-collecting mechanism of the previous book and expanded the rules with the inclusion of a magic system. *Balthus Dire must be completed by a long and strategic spell battle at the end of the book - this took Steve Jackson many hours to plan out. In fact Steve named Balthus Dire his favourite Fighting Fantasy character. *In a minor error, ff you leave the library (18) to approach the dining area (31), it says you come from the Game Room. See Also *Fighting Fantasy References * * * Official sites: * * Magazines: * Citadel of Chaos, The 02 02